And the WH hatchet man was …

posted at 8:01 am on February 28, 2013 by Ed Morrissey

… Gene Sperling, at least according to BuzzFeed’s source with access to the e-mail conversation between Bob Woodward and whoever “threatened” him. As hatchet men go, a director of the White House Economic Council is an odd choice. Isn’t this the kind of thing Rahm Emanuel used to handle?

The White House official whom Bob Woodward charged had crosssed a line by saying he would “regret” printing his version of a set of Washington negotiations was Gene Sperling, the director of the White House Economic Council, a source familiar with the exchange told BuzzFeed Wednesday.

The email from Sperling to Woodward, which Woodward read to PoliticoWednesday, has transfixed Washington, with Republicans and some in the press charging that it embodies a White House lording it over a cowed press corps.

Woodward, Politico reported, called the top official — identified to BuzzFeed as Sperling — to tell him that he would question Obama’s account of negotiations leading to the “sequester” — automatic cuts set to take effect next month.

The aide “yelled at me for about a half hour,” Woodward said, and then sent a follow-up email that read, in part: “You’re focusing on a few specific trees that give a very wrong impression of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here. … I think you will regret staking out that claim.”

So who exactly is Sperling, and why is he so frightening?

Sperling, a former aide to Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin who held the same position in Clinton’s second term, is a veteran Democratic budget wonk and party insider. Remarked one friend Wednesday, he is “not exactly cut from the classic, no-drama Obama cloth.”

What cloth would that be? The Rahm Emanuel-David Axelrod-Joe Biden-“War on Wimmenses” cloth? Sounds to me like Sperling fits right in at the club.

I’m not sure I buy that conversation as a “threat,” but Woodward’s later point is well taken. A less-heralded reporter certainly would have cause to worry, which the Obamasphere made clear when they began throwing the Hero of Watergate under the bus for daring to criticize The One. Woodward will come out unscathed; I’m not so sure his critics will have the same outcome.

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Why wouldn’t the White House lord it over the press? They have proven themselves to be without any respect and hardly the formidable critics of the President that they were given special constitutional protection to do. It’s hard to be a critic when you’re in the middle of mass media hugfest and seeking desperately for attention from him.

less-heralded reporter certainly would have cause to worry, which the Obamasphere made clear when they began throwing the Hero of Watergate under the bus for daring to criticize The One.

One has to wonder if this will be enough to get Bob to start poking around and asking questions about Benghazi… Imagine if the man who brought down Nixon somehow was instrumental in bringing down Obama. It certainly would be apropos… but I’m not holding my breath.

I don’t buy the email as a threat either. It is indicative of the Admin’s relationship with the media however. Fox is supposed to do this, not a journalist from their stable. And the left, that insists the MSM is unbiased, wails! simply can’t handle anything approaching criticism.

Look at the fawning adulation all reporters give Mr. Obama. The reporting which repeatedly dismisses facts, poses no intellectual exploration of his initiatives and puts everything in a positive spin.

People joke that Mr. Obama is the media’s “god-king” because ostensibly he has no flaws. He is more perfect than any other president and apparently has less power- since all bad occurrences are not his fault. It’s out of his control, etc.

The press corps are a bunch of lap dogs, dupes and fanboys. And they wonder why nobody except the drones believes or respects them.

Good for Woodward. It’s about time someone had some integrity and spoke the truth.

David Plouffe from The White House tweeted that “Watching Woodward the last 2 days is like watching my idol Mike Schmidt facing live pitching again. Perfection gained once is rarely repeated” So i will make my own baseball analogy. Watching the Obama administration is like watching the Chicago Black Sox.

Everyone already knows that the press has been glorifying Obama
and ignoring his marxist/socialist/communist thug regime, Bob
Woodward until now included.

However, NOW, he gets upset because they “threatened” him
personally and his giant ego can’t take it.

The fact that the Obama thug regime has been threatening the
“way of life” for the rest of us was/is untouchable for all the
press’s self serving reasons.

I don’t claim to know all the ins and outs of Nixon’s presidency,
good or bad, however, I find the Watergate situation pales in
comparison to what has been done to this country along with future plans of rule under United Nations Agenda 21. Where
is the book about this crooked regime, jacka$$!

The only good that might come out of this is that it might (doubtful)encourage other reporters to tell their own tales of
intimidation by the White House. I suppose that the book, if there
is one, will be about that instead of what is really important.

Imagine if the man who brought down Nixon somehow was instrumental in bringing down Obama. It certainly would be apropos… but I’m not holding my breath.

imperfectamerica on February 28, 2013 at 8:13 AM

My hope is a bit more simple. That this overt in-your-face attack on Woodward will cause the press to re-think their special relationship with a rat-eared dictator. I find it hard to believe they want to abandon all pretense of objectivity and just repeat administration press releases.

My hope is a bit more simple. That this overt in-your-face attack on Woodward will cause the press to re-think their special relationship with a rat-eared dictator. I find it hard to believe they want to abandon all pretense of objectivity and just repeat administration press releases.

By itself, the exact statement “…you’ll regret this” could have several interpretations. For example, you’ll regret this because you are wrong vs. you’ll regret this because I’m coming after you.

Given Woodward’s claim that the man yelled at him for half an hour beforehand, I can see how BW would go with the latter interpretation.

CJ on February 28, 2013 at 8:17 AM

David Plouffe is now calling Woodward a has-been. The thuggery of this administration stated when they called Gerald Walpin senile for doing his job – and very few went to Walpin’s defense. It was definitely a threat.

critics of the President that they were given special constitutional protection to do

Don L on February 28, 2013 at 8:10 AM

Please, that’s media propaganda. They weren’t given any powers or privileges in the Constitution. They weren’t singled-out in the Constitution. You have the same freedom of press if you print pamphlets from your basement–pamphleteers were big in that day. And really, if you blog–and do not violate the private agreements with your ISP and your blog provider, should get the same consideration.

The libs are always talking about what the founders never saw–well, they never saw big media either. Before the unions, a large city might have 20 newspapers. I think the founders would have shamed today’s celebratory narcissists who now decry “too many voices” in the news–or other people’s exercise of press.

The email may have been intended a threat, but I don’t see it that way. It’s very mild…if someone said that to me I’d laugh in their face.

Slade73 on February 28, 2013 at 8:31 AM

Yeah but chances are that whoever would have said that to you can’t get the IRS to audit your tax returns, revoke your press pass, or kill you with a drone.

This is a vindictive bullying White House when it comes to press that is less compliant than Candy Crowley and her disgusting bias, or editing out Michelle Obama’s stupid comments about automatic guns, or any of the other crap that the press has been willing to do for the rat-eared dictator up until now.

If it wasn’t a threat, at the very least it was “marching orders” issued by the White House to someone they saw as a wayward journalist who’s supposee to be on their side.

If this White House truly had to cope with the type of built-in media opposition Nixon already had years before Watergate, their collective heads would explode. (As for the comments on Sperling, they remind me of those you see about half the time from neighbors when a child molester or serial killer’s arrested — “He was such a quiet young man who kept to himself. I never would have suspected him of doing that.”)

“So we now have the president going out (saying) ‘Because of this piece of paper and this agreement, I can’t do what I need to do to protect the country.’ That’s a kind of madness that I haven’t seen in a long time,” Woodward told MSNBC on Wednesday.

Woodward is not afraid to use blunt language to describe Obama. Still, I find it disconcerting that Woodward found it necessary to call the White House to say he was running the story – it wasn’t as if he was seeking clarification. Also disconcerting that he allowed some jackass to yell at him for half an hour.

My hope is a bit more simple. That this overt in-your-face attack on Woodward will cause the press to re-think their special relationship with a rat-eared dictator. I find it hard to believe they want to abandon all pretense of objectivity and just repeat administration press releases.

Happy Nomad on February 28, 2013 at 8:18 AM

If the press didn’t read Whitehouse press releases, they might have to do a little more work.

They’ll save all that effort if Republicans ever get back into power–course it will still be grab the nearest naysayer and run his words as “some have expressed serious concerns”.

Everyone who thinks Woodward knows what “regret” and “you will regret” meant in this context raise your hands.

After all, he is a wordsmith. He uses words as tools and writes for a living. He has been doing it very successfully for about a half a century. He has been around and writing about DC and politicians all of that time. And he has been dealing with the aids of politicians throughout.

And if Comrade O is really unaware after all of this time that this is how his Chicago Way Gang operates, after being a part of it for decades, I guess he is even dumber than we think he is.

… keep in mind and consider the arrogance and the hubris of the Chicago Way Gang.

Also, if they will try to bully and intimidate someone like Woodward, imagine the treatment the lesser small fry get if they dare question and criticize Comrade O. Of course, most of them don’t. Most in the MSM propaganda machine know their role and go along.

Woodward was acting too independently. He needed to be read the riot act. It backfired. Woodward knows this came from on high, which is why he went public. His “if only Comrade O knew” refrain is a fig leaf, a peace offering, to Dead Leader. His message to Comrade O is “don’t try to push me around and bully me”.

I’m not sure I buy that conversation as a “threat,” but Woodward’s later point is well taken.

For what other reason would a party insider tell a reporter that he “will regret staking out that claim”, if it isn’t to brandish the rhetorical stick in order to intimidate the reporter into dropping the claim?

The phrase “you’re going to regret” is not necessarily a threat. I’m sure some of the people in the Obama administration (like Arne Duncan, for example) already regret their histrionics, because they were caught lying about the effects of the sequester. If someone had said, “you’re going to regret making these outrageous claims”, that wouldn’t be a threat.

However, it was most certainly a threat toward Woodward, because Woodward isn’t lying or engaging in demagoguery.

It can only be a case of “you’ll regret this, because the truth will come out and you’ll look foolish” if the Obama administration believes its own lies. Sorry, but I really don’t think they believe their own lies. Their lies are deliberate and calculated.

Why, exactly, might Woodward “regret” it? What might cause him to have “regret”? And what might Sperling know of the possible causes for this “regret”?

It may have been an empty desperate ham-handed threat. But is was a threat, an attempt to bully and intimidate. And Woodward, who should know about these things after fifty-plus years in Washington DC, read it correctly.

And Sperling would not have tried it on Woodward if this wasn’t standard operating procedure for this admin.

But if only Comrade O what was going on, what his high level operatives were doing, he would disapprove. LOL.

Remember when Mika amended her “reporter” on the air based on a texting from the WH? Yeah it’s a threat, at the very least to restrict his access if he continues to expose the lies and corruption. Ed, you’re a blogger, not a journalist even if your reporting is better than the LSM. Enough of the “fair and balanced unbiased” mumble jumble. Call ‘em like you see it or don’t bother opining. Then again, if that’s how you really see it, then you’re losing your touch. Maybe it’s that “going native” thing ever since townhall took over hot gas.

My hope is a bit more simple. That this overt in-your-face attack on Woodward will cause the press to re-think their special relationship with a rat-eared dictator. I find it hard to believe they want to abandon all pretense of objectivity and just repeat administration press releases.

Happy Nomad on February 28, 2013 at 8:18 AM

Don’t get your hopes up too high. They just went all out to get there Boy King re-elected.

Though still a liberal and a Democrat, Woodward is a bit of a maverick and atypical of the DC press corp.

This episode illustrates how intolerant of any dissent at all Dear Leader’s admin is.

Context matters. After being “yelled at … for about a half hour” I would take it as a threat.

farsighted on February 28, 2013 at 9:03 AM

I, for one, would not sit there and be yelled at for half an hour. I don’t care if it is the White House. The guy who brought down Nixon should have said “I’ve done it before and I can do it again” and hung up.

Speaking of Woodward, the current dictatorship makes the Nixon White House seem transparent.

The only way this “you are going to regret this” could not be taken as a threat would be if Woodward was publicly exposed to be completely wrong and in error — if he was so publicly embarrassed by this error that he would have to admit his mistake. That is the kind of caution a friend would give another friend.

There is no way that can or will happen because Woodward knows he speaks the truth. Sperling knows that. Woodward knows that. And Woodward knows Sperling knows that. Which leaves us with this. That Sperling and the admin would be the agents of something else that would cause Woodward “regret”, which makes it a threat.